Special Children’s Needs

Credit to Michelle_Pitzel published on Pixabay

Something we don’t talk about openly is the needs of children with special requirements. Children with a wide range of challenges that manifest in different ways. Some challenges are purely physical or motor-related, others are, from society’s perspective, mental or cognitive challenges. To a large extent, these children are integrated into regular classes alongside children deemed more typical. If we can afford it, children with special needs attending a mainstream class have a support person assigned to them. However, this is not always the case; the class teacher, who already has too many children in the class, is expected to provide the extra support needed.

Specialist schools exist for several types of specific needs. Children diagnosed with autism, Asperger’s syndrome, and other conditions within the autism spectrum are supposed to attend regular schools. Children with other types of symptoms risk falling entirely outside the system. Sweden boasts ten special schools nationwide, according to the responsible authority’s website. These children are typically deaf or have hearing impairments. This includes deaf children and those with hearing difficulties who also have a combined intellectual disability or congenital deaf-blindness. Some of these schools also accept children with severe speech disorders.

There are children who do not fit into any of these established categories but are extraordinarily sensitive to disruptions or have difficulties communicating because their manner of communication deviates from what is considered normal. Many of these children are highly intelligent but require calm environments and appropriate settings to thrive—settings that today’s schools find difficult, if not impossible, to provide.

However, there are simple ways to improve the environment for children with special needs attending mainstream schools. Although these are straightforward, they are often difficult to implement because they go against our rigid traditional structures and environments. This can also be complemented by harsh, unfriendly lighting, combined with institutional grey or greenish tones—spaces that shout ‘institution’ and that children, especially those sensitive to rigid environments, colours, frequencies, and sounds, find distressing.

Softening classrooms by establishing order and tidiness, along with shelves and cupboards with well-organized materials, creates a calmer atmosphere. Lighter, more harmonious wall colours help foster a peaceful environment. Bright pastel shades, preferably in combination, create a different climate, along with calming sound frequencies.

The arrangement of furniture is another simple way to create harmony. Desks can be grouped into small clusters for children with similar maturity levels or positioned in a circle. Everyone can see each other, and no one is behind another.

The pedagogical approach can be favorably shifted from highly controlled lessons to activities with daily goals, where students structure their day around these objectives. This could even be extended to weekly plans. Children know what will happen, what is expected of them, and what they aim to achieve. They understand the what and why of their daily or weekly tasks.

Background music or water sounds also have a calming and stabilizing effect. Finally, a forum should be established where children, as a group, can discuss and reflect with each other, the teacher, or other adults. Here, children can freely express themselves about what has happened, what they have felt or experienced. The tone is not meant to accuse anyone but to highlight issues so that learning and behaviour change can occur, especially behaviours that might not be beneficial for the class as a whole.

As indicated above, the measures that can be taken are not unknown in society. Perhaps they are unfamiliar to decision-makers at all levels, but the knowledge of what is needed exists and is accessible. There may be a hint of dogmatism behind the reluctance—those who want to preserve the status quo may have better channels of communication with those in power than those proposing change. Or perhaps it simply comes down to budgets being balanced, which overrides everything.

The budget problem arises when budgets are insufficient for the core mission of the schools, let alone addressing the needs of children with special requirements. In reality, the current budgets do not meet the fundamental needs of any children. As adults, we don’t uphold our children’s needs. If the mantra of ‘school, healthcare, and care’ truly meant something, these sectors would receive the funding necessary to meet their goals. But so many want a share of the pie that this desire often takes precedence over the fundamental purpose behind the mantra. Promises suddenly become less meaningful.

The adult world therefore fails children—those in need of healthcare and elder care. Funds are wasted on a variety of projects or initiatives that arguably are not essential for society’s long-term survival.

The fundamental concept of caring for one another is being sidelined. Beautiful words without substance in real life. Those who know and can are overridden by those who think they can and who hold power. The contract between ordinary people and those in authority is breaking down.

If we cannot base our policies on what “all” politicians—and, for that matter, civil servants —say is the most important—namely, school, healthcare, and elder care—one might wonder what our long-term future looks like.

If we take the phrase “special children’s needs” and rearrange it a little, we get a very different meaning: Children’s special needs. That is, all children have special needs. This is something that should trigger reflection. Every child is a unique individual with their own specific needs. This ought to form the basis of the Education Act and the work that schools should undertake. To do this, the very things that all politicians talk about—investing in schools, healthcare, and care—must be allocated the appropriate resources to make it happen.

For this to happen we, the adults and parents, need to put the wellbeing and a bright future for our children as the one most important factor. We need to demand to our politicians that they allocate necessary resources to school, healthcare and care of our elders. That they dare to make the right priorities. We, the grown ups, must also make priorities and stop to demand that the society should take the cost for every little activity that benefit the ego of or selves.

Be conscious

Ulf